Waymo releases 360 self- driving car technology video

Waymo released a 360 video showing one of it’s self-driving vans driving through city streets from the perspective of what the on board radar and sensors see.

This video really puts into perspective what is happening as a self-driving car moves through city streets, and how it detects vehicles, pedestrians, and other obstacles. You can view Waymo’s 360 video for yourself here.

Self-driving car technology is still in it’s infancy, but the technology is getting better. Companies like Tesla, Nissan, Volvo, and others are pushing forward quickly with this new technology, although taking different approaches to the same end result of one day having fully autonomous vehicles.

I recently drove the new 2018 Nissan LEAF with Nissan’s ProPilot system, which uses self-driving technology to provide a semi-autonomous experiance. Nissan is clear that their ProPilot system is not a fully autonomous system, but rather a driver assistance system to help reduce driver fatigue. Nissan does claim this is the beginning and will build additional capability into the system over the next several years.

I was very impressed with the capability of Nissan’s ProPilot, although the system is not trying to provide a fully autonomous experiance like Waymo’s van in the released video, it does provide semi-autonomous capability.

Waymo’s video gives you a good understanding of what these systems are sensing as a self-driving vehicle moves through obstacles.